Wednesday 8 September 2021

Three free things

I'm away in the van having a lovely time looking at gardens and castles and things*. Um, I mean I'm researching hard and promoting my new book. I might even squeeze in a bit of actual writing.

Don't think the fact that I'm taking it easy for a while gives you an excuse to do the same though. I have three free things to keep you busy.

If you're interested in ecological matters, you can try winning one of the cash prizes offered for the Green Stories competitions. Poets and humour writers might like to try this competition with a $2,000 prize. As always, these writing competitions are free to enter.

On Friday Claire Buckle is presenting a free online short story workshop.

Womag news

It appears that individual editors at The People's Friend are now notifying authors when their stories are in the magazines, rather than admin. (I've got one in the current special.)

And finally, Carol Bevitt has passed on a piece of good news – My Weekly have slightly increased they pay rate for their pocket novels.  That's definitely a step in the right direction. There's a post about it and link to the full guidelines here.

*As we've only just left, the photos here are from previous trips. I'll be sharing lots of new ones soon, here and on social media.


7 comments:

Eirin Thompson said...

Best wishes with your travels/research, Patsy. I've just returned from holiday on the causeway coast, so missed taking part in two recent womagwriter blog conversations - can I quickly send very best wishes to Jo Derrick on her relaunch of 'The Yellow Room' magazine (it's new to me and I'm eager to find out more)and to you on the release of 'Criminal Intent'. I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, so can't do anything there, but, having read and enjoyed your 'Coffee and Cake' short story collection, I took it on holiday with the intention of leaving it in my self-catering accommodation for the next people to stay. Due to COVID restrictions, the house was stripped of all 'bits and pieces' however, and I was afraid anything I left behind would be removed, so I carried it around in my bag until I found a 'take a book, leave a book' shelf in a very cosy hostelry called The Portstewart Arms - so you never know who might pick it up and read it!

Sheelagh said...

Thanks for that update Patsy, enjoy your travels, it sounds wonderful and its all part of the process collecting material for your next book!!
I put in an order (in my local midland library in Ireland) for your book 'Criminal Intent' and the librarian said she would locate other books by you for the library once she gets a query so that's great for me (& hopefully you too)

Marguerite said...

Another lovely atmospheric photo... Thank you for the Wergle Flump - that could be one for the very silly side of me (and there's a lot of that!) Have fun with your continued "research" ;)

Penny A said...

It's never a bad thing to take a bit of time off! Enjoy your travels, Patsy.

ados123 said...

Thanks as always, Patsy for the competitions links.

Enjoy your trip. Not too much cake or icecream...

Alyson

Wendy said...

Hope you enjoy your travels, Patsy.

Thanks for the info. I've been umming and ahing about having a go at writing a pocket novel, so your post has been a timely prompt.

Patsy said...

@ Eirin – I can never resist looking in those little 'libraries' but it's never occurred to me I might see one of my books in one! Who knows, maybe whoever picks it up will go on to read more of my books.

@ Sheelagh – thanks for doing that and potentially introducing my stories to lots of new readers. As far as I know that will be the first time one of my books has been in an Irish library.

@ Marguerite – Go on, let the silliness out and onto the page!

@ Penny – We're having a lovely time so far.

@ Alyson – I've not had any ice cream at all! Cake though ... um...

@ Wendy – good luck with the PN if you do decide to give it a go.